Trapped Bugs, Rotten Fruits and Faked Collages: Amadeo Souza Cardoso's Troublesome Modernism
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 82; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00233609.2013.794859
ISSN1651-2294
Autores Tópico(s)History, Culture, and Society
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. On World War I's effect over the artistic milieu see Kenneth Silver, Esprit de Corps: the Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914–1925, Princeton University Press and Thames and Hudson, 1989 and Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, [1986] 2003. See also J. Arnaldo, 1914! La Vanguardia y la Gran Guerra, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemiza, 2008. 2. Matei Callinescu's words defining the avant-gard; see Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1987, p. 95. 3. Such solidarity between aesthetics and social concerns lead us to the fundamental definition of the avant-garde both in Renato Poggioli and Peter Bürger's classic «theories of the avant-garde»; see Renato Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-Garde, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1968 [1962] and Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant Garde, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1984; for an overall synopses see Matei Calinesco, Five Faces of Modernity …, 1987. Rosalind Krauss put originality as the main theme of the avant-garde discourse: «By originality, here, I mean more than just the kind of revolt against tradition (…) or the sounds in the futurists’ promise to destroy the museums (…). More than a rejection or dissolution of the past, avant-garde originality is conceived as a literal origin, a beginning from ground zero, a birth. (…) For originality becomes an organicist metaphor referring not so much to formal invention as to sources of life»; R. Krauss, «The originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition», October, vol. 18, Autumn 1981, pp. 47–66 (p. 53 for the quotation above). 4. There are many accounts on these Orpheu avant-garde years. Art history's reference synthesis on this period are: José-Augusto França, A arte em Portugal no século XX, Lisboa, Bertrand, [1974] 1991, pp. 51–94; José-Augusto França, O Modernismo na Arte Portuguesa, Lisboa, Ministério da Educação, [1979] 1991, pp. 19–36; Rui Mário Gonçalves, História da Arte em Portugal – Pioneiros da Modernidade, vol 12, Lisboa, Alfa, 1988, 49–96; Raquel Henriques da Silva, «Os anos do Orpheu e de Portugal Futurista», História da Arte Portuguesa (Direcção de Paulo Pereira), vol.3, Círculo de Leitores, 1999, 370–377; and Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, Pintura Portuguesa do século XX, Porto, Lello Editores, 2002 (3rd edition), pp. 13–42. 5. A thorough account on the Delaunay Iberian sojourn is given by Pascal Rousseau, «‘El arte nuevo nos sonríe’ Robert y Sonia Delaunay en Iberia (1914–1921), Robert y Sonia Delaunay, Barcelona, Museu Picasso, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2001, pp. 41–70; see also the pioneer work of Paulo Ferreira, Correspondance de quatre artistes portugais Almada Negreiros, José Pacheco, Souza Cardoso, Eduardo Viana avec Robert et Sonia Delaunay, Paris, PUF, 1972, pp. 40–56. 6. P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, p. 41. 7. The idea of a high modernist aura considers both Robert Delaunay's quest for pure painting (mentioned subsequently) and the reception of his and Sonia Delaunay's work as belonging to a priviledge and central aesthetic realm. 8. G. Apollinaire, Les Fenêtres (Robert Delaunay 1885–1941), Paris, Galerie Louis Carré, 1947; P. Ferreira also acknowledges the ascendant of Robert Delaunay on the young Portuguese artists; see P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, p. 41. 9. Following early 19th century sources of the neo-impressionists, as M.E. Chevreul's De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs, 1839 (The Laws of Contrast of Color); See Sherry Buckberrough, Robert Delaunay: The Discovery of Simultaneity, Mich., UMI Research Press, 1982, pp. 133–140. 10. See G. Apollinaire, «The beginings of Cubism» (1912), and «Peintres Cubistes» (1913), Theories of Modern Art (ed. Herschel B. Chipp), Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968, pp. 216–219 and pp. 221–228. 11. Sonia Delaunay's arrival had the honours of a small photo and newspaper piece, signed by José de Almada Negreiros. The presentation of La prose du Transsibérien in Stockholm is mentioned in this piece as an being associated to an ongoing exhibition of the Delaunays in town. Almada Negreiros refers both as «the extraordinary simultaneous festivity of Stockholm»; see P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 128–129. 12. On this «first simultaneous book», presented as «poems, simultaneous colors, in an edition attaining the height of the Eiffel Tower: 150 copies numbered and signed» see Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment … [1986] 2003, pp. 2–43, and p. 7 (for the quotations above). 13. José-Augusto França wrote his core study on Amadeo's life and work in 1957, later published as «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», Amadeo & Almada, Venda Nova, Bertrand, [1957] 1985, pp. 11–158; recent studies include Laura Coyle (Editor), At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, Lisboa, GRI, Corcoran Gallery, 1999; Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007 (Vol I – Fotobiografia), and 2008 (Vol. II – Pintura); and Joana Cunha Leal, “Uma entrada para Entrada. Amadeo, a historiografia e os territórios da pintura”, Intervalo, N. 4, 2010, pp. 133–153. For general Portuguese art histories see note 4. 14. The reception of these exhibitions is thoroughly documented in Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, pp. 239–254. 15. Almada Negreiros’ manifest was printed in leafleat distributed in Souza Cardoso's exhibition in Lisbon (1916); a facsimile of this document is printed in Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, pp. 248–249. 16. Fernando Pessoa, [Letter to Armando Côrtes-Rodrigues, September 4th 1916] quoted in Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, pp. 253. 17. The exhibition took place at Souza Cardoso's studio (n. 3, rue du Colonel Combes); see P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, p.30 and Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, pp. 139–140. 18. A thorough account on Souza Cardoso's US venture is given in Laura Coyle, «Amadeo and America», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 79–99. 19. As Paulo Ferreira's study accounted for in Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 31; see also Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, p. 140–213. 20. See Kenneth Silver, «Amadeo in the Tower of Babel», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 51–59 and Maria Helena de Freitas, «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Diálogo de Vanguardas», Diálogo de Vanguardas, Lisboa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkina-CAM, 2006, pp. 19–67. 21. Influencial examples of such an approach are: J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, pp. 11–158; Rui Mário Gonçalves, História da Arte em Portugal – Pioneiros da Modernidade, 1988, pp. 49–96; Raquel Henriques da Silva, «Os anos do Orpheu e de Portugal Futurista», História da Arte Portuguesa, 1999, pp. 372–373; and Maria Helena de Freitas, both in «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Diálogo de Vanguardas», 2006, pp. 19–67 and «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso 1887–1918», Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Pintura – Vol. II), 2008, pp. 17–37. 22. See note 21. 23. The cult of the artist, supported by biographical inquiry determined to clarify Souza Cardos's oeuvre, sets the tone of almost everyting that has been written about him; some recent examples are: Maria Helena de Freitas, «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Diálogo de Vanguardas», 2006, pp.19–67 and Catarina Alfaro, Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Matosinhos, Quidnovi, 2010. A thorough account on Souza Cardoso's historiography of art can be read in Joana Cunha Leal, «Uma entrada para Entrada…», 2010, pp. 133–153. 24. See Mariana Pinto dos Santos,«‘Estou atrasado! Estou atrasado!’ — Sobre o atraso da arte portuguesa diagnosticado pela historiografia», Representações da Portugalidade (eds. André Barata, António Santos Pereira e José Ricardo Carvalheiro), Lisboa, Caminho, 2011, pp. 231–242. 25. A relevant discussion on postcolonial critique and art history can be found in James D. Herbert, «Passing between Art History and Postcolonial Theory», The Subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspectives (ed. Mark. A. Cheetham, Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 213–228. 26. José-Augusto França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985. This is the first and one of the main studies on Souza Cardoso's work, because formal and stilistic analysis of his paintings are presented, while also constructing a biographical narrative. As such, França's study sets the basis of all subsequent accounts on Souza Cardoso's work up to the present day; to an in-depht analysis of these accounts see Joana Cunha Leal, «Uma entrada para Entrada …», 2010, pp. 133–153. 27. Rosemary O'Neill, «Modernist Rendez-vous: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and the Delaunays», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 61. 28. P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, p. 31. 29. All documents regarding Souza Cardoso's life and work are now published or registered in Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol. I – Fotobiografia), 2007. 30. K. Silver, «Amadeo in the Tower of Babel», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 51–59. 31. The Delaunay's weekly dinner parties gathered poets, painters, sculptors and writers such as Archipenko, Picabia, Apollinaire, Cocteau, Cendrars, Chagall, and many others. An account of the Delaunay's preeminence in those pre-war years is given by Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment …, [1986] 2003, especially pp. 3–13. 32. This verbal-visual work would obsess Souza Cardoso later on, as testify the letters published by P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 70–71. 33. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, pp. 73–78 34. A thorough analysis of Robert Delaunay's painting is given by Sherry Buckberrough, Robert Delaunay …, 1982, pp. 133–160 35. See note 4; see also: R. O'Neill, «Modernist Rendez-vous: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and the Delaunays», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 61–77. 36. A balanced perspective can nevertheless be found in Rui Mário Gonçalves’ small section on the «encounter between Orpheu and Corporation Nouvelle»; see Rui Mário Gonçalves, História da Arte em Portugal – Pioneiros da Modernidade, 1988, pp. 71–73. 37. See J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 100; P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 48–51; and R. O'Neill, «Modernist Rendez-vous: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and the Delaunays», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 61–77. 38. P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 70–71. 39. P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 50–51. 40. R. O'Neill, «Modernist Rendez-vous: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and the Delaunays», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 75–76. 41. The Delaunays’ enthusiasm with Portuguese folk culture is well documented. In Rosemary O'Neill's synthesis: «This period [in Portugal] was a productive one for the Delaunays; the people, markets, and surrondings turned their attention to nature and local inhabitants whose ways seemed to remain outside time. Sonia Delaunay's paintings draw from her experience of this new locale. Jouet portugais, 1915, is an example of her renewed interest in folk art.»; See R. O'Neill, «Modernist Rendez-vous: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso and the Delaunays», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, p. 70. 42. This doll was presented in a color plate in P. Ferreira's book with the following mention: «Poupée de chiffon, de fabrication populaire portugaise, ayant servi de modèle à Souza Cardoso pour des tableaux tels que Chanson Populaire et Oiseau du Bresil (…) »; see P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 96–97. 43. See once again P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, p. 45. 44. Thomas Crow's discussion on these subject matter is key, as he studies the overlapping of high and low culture from the perspective of the center of modernism's history; see Th. Crow, «Modernism and Mass Culture in the Visual Arts», Modern Art in the Common Culture. – London: Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 3–37. 45. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 139 46. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 139 47. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 139–140. 48. Moreover, França believes that Souza Cardoso was not aware of this distortion because his approach to painting was rather superficial. In Franças’ words: «Amadeo [Souza Cardoso] was not, of course, aware of this: the fundamental sprain he imprinted on a grammatical element, subordinating it to another semantic game. This was of irrelevance to him, for he did not need this element as his occasional master needed. Was it because of the superficiality of his approach? Undoubtedly – beeing a stranger to the kind of approach defined and accomplished by Delaunay, how can one censor his procedure? Actually Amadeo [Souza Cardoso] did anything but taking someone else's property without the spirit of a disciple or plagiarism. And was not the only one to do so.»; J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 140. 49. «Many consider that decorative considerations should govern the spirit of the new painters. Undoubtedly they are ignorant of the most obvious signs which make decorative work the antithesis of the picture. The decorative work of art exists only by virtue of its destination; it is animated only by the relations existing between it and determined objects. (…) The picture bears its pretext, the reason for its existence, within it.»; Gleizes and Metzinger, «Cubism» (1912), Theories of Modern Art (ed. Herschel B. Chipp), Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968, pp. 209–210. 50. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 140. 51. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985, p. 140. 52. See particuarly Raquel Henriques da Silva, «Os anos do Orpheu e de Portugal Futurista», História da Arte Portuguesa, 1999, pp. 374–375; Bernardo Pinto de Almeida, Pintura Portuguesa do século XX, 2002, pp. 32–35; Maria Helena de Freitas, «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso 1887–1918», Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Pintura – Vol. II), 2008, pp. 34–35; and João Pinharanda, «O Modernismo I: Expressão, Estilização, Disciplina», Arte Portuguesa (coord. Dalila Rodrigues), s.l., Fubu Editores, 2009, pp. 33–40 53. R. Krauss, «The originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition», p. 53. 54. Maria Helena de Freitas writes: «These last works, which can be dated to 1917, form the most consistent and powerful body of works that establish him [Souza Cardoso] as an artist. The alogical narrative used to articulate the component parts was understood as an intuitive approximation to Dadaism.»; «Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Diálogo de Vanguardas», 2006, p. 62. Another striking example sustainning this conclusion is Pedro Lapa's «A Modernist Through the Memory of a Distant Present», At the Edge: A Portuguese Futurist, 1999, pp. 101–109. J.-A. França does not share this approach; see «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985. 55. J.-A. França, «Amadeo de Souza Cardoso», [1957] 1985. 56. The reference here being the important contribution of Pedro Lapa with the title «A Modernist Through the Memory of a Distant Present», 1999, pp.101–109. 57. Theoretical object is a notion I borrow from Hubert Damisch's approaches on both Théorie du nuage. Pour une histoire de la peinture, Paris, éditions du Seuil, 1972 and L'origine de la perspective, Paris, Flammarion, 1993 [1987]. For Stephen Melville's, Damisch's approach «can be described in terms of a certain displacement, or set of displacements, of philosophy toward objects, toward works of art and more particularly, toward the material facts and presence of notably modern or modernist art. (…) the objects that matter to Damisch are defined in large measure by their showing, as if that were essentially what those objects do. In letting itself be exposed to objects, philosophy is asked, in effect, to find itself as it is caught up in their act. Implicit in this must be some notion that an object's self-showing is a form of thinking.»; Stephen Melville, «Object and Objectivity in Damisch», Oxford Art Journal. – N. 2 (2005), p. 183 58. C. Greenberg, «Collage,» Art and Culture, Boston, Beacon Press, 1961, pp. 70–83. According to Greenberg the invention of collage responded to the needs of the formal research being developed by Picasso and Braque: «(…) The process of flattening seemed inexorable, and it became necessary to emphasize the surface still further in order to prevent it from fusing with the illusion. It was for this reason, and no other that I can see, that in September 1912, Braque took the radical and revolutionary step of pasting actual pieces of imitation-wood grain wallpaper to a drawing on paper, instead of trying to simulate its texture in paint. Picasso says that he himself had already made his first collage toward the end of 1911, when he glued a piece of imitation-caning oilcloth to a painting on canvas». 59. See Yves-Alain Bois, «Kahnweiler's Lesson», Representations. – N. 18 (Spring 1987), pp. 33–68. 60. A sum of Rosalind Krauss’ argument can be read in «The Circulation of the sign», The Picasso Papers, London, Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 25–85. This passage of page 28 in paradigmatic of her postion: «Does Picasso need to state any more clearly the sense in which the sign here [Violin, autumn 1912], like the linguist's tokens, has no natural relation to a referent, no real-world model that gives it a meaning or secures its identitity? Does he need to declare any more forcefully that here , un the fall of 1912, with his new medium of collage, he has entered a space in which the sign has slipped away from the fixity of what the semiologist would call an iconic condition – that of resemblance – to assume the ceaseless play of meaningopen to the symbol, which is to saylanguage's unmotivated, conventional sign?» 61. Patricia Leightnen's argument is clearly (and fiercely) stated in «Cubist Anachronisms: Ahistoricity, Cryptoformalism, and Business-as-Usual in New York», Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 17, N.2, 1994, pp. 91–102. See also her «Picasso's Collages and the Threat of War, 1912–1913», The Art Bulletin, vol. 67, N.4, 1985, pp. 653–672. 62. See particularly David Cottington's «What the papers say: Politics and Ideology in Picasso's Collages of 1912», Art Journal, Vol. 47, Winter 1988, pp. 350–359. 63. Christine Poggy, In Defiance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992. The opening setence of Poggi's in-deepht study says precisely: «My thinking on the subject of collage draws on recent semiological analyses derived from both structuralist and poststructuralist sources as well as historically informed methods of interpretation and close visual and textual analyses of individual works.» (p. XI) 64. See Christine Poggy, In Defiance of Painting …, 1992, p. XI. 65. See H. Damisch, L'origine de la perspective, 1993 [1987] and particularly Louis Marin's, Sublime Poussin (translated by Catherine Porter), Standford, Standford University Press, 1999 [1995] and On Representation, (translated by Catherine Porter), Standford, Standford University Press, 2001 [1994]. 66. M. Bal, Reading «Rembrandt»: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition. – Cambrigde: Cambridge University Press, 1991. I do take Bal's statement about the political implications of censuring interpretation. As she puts it: «While I find much that is intellectually attractive in the currently widespread resistance to interpretation presented in response to the recognition of the free play of signs and meanings, I also see in it a renewed threat to the freedom of cultural participation, a new form of censorship. (…) censorship of interpretation can be used to conceal the censorship by interpretation. And that is why the resistance to interpretation can receive such a wide acclaim, from progressive as well as from conservative ideologues. A more open academic and educational policy can make room to include the views of those who respond to art from a less predominant social position. Such a broadening is an indispensable next step toward a better, more diverse and complex, understanding of culture. In spite of its challenging and persuasive logic, we must place the resistance to interpretation within this dynamic.» (pp. 13–14). 67. See Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment … [1986] 2003, pp. 45–79; see also the key study of Christine Poggy, In Defiance of Painting …, 1992. 68. The entire story can be followed through the letters exchanged between Amadeo and Robert Delaunay published by P. Ferreira, Correspondance …, 1972, pp. 52–54, and especially Souza Cardoso's letter to Robert Delaunay writen on April 14th 1916 published on pages 123–124. 69. The very lamp Souza Cardoso also painted in the Register Machine canvas (fig. 3) is known as it appears in a Wotan catalogue page owned by the painter; see photograph number 9 in Maria Helena de Freitas (Editor), Catálogo Raisonné Amadeo Souza Cardoso (Vol I – Fotobiografia), 2007, p. 278. 70. See Rosalind Krauss, The Picasso Papers, 1998, pp. 3–85. 71. See H. Damisch, «Hubert Damisch and Stephen Bann: a conversation», Oxford Art Journal, vol. 28, n. 2, 2005, pp. 159–160 72. See Daniel Arasse, On n'y voit rien: Descriptions, Paris, Folio, 2000.
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